Should you hide your memoir by writing fiction instead?

You want to write a memoir, but you’re wondering if you should instead change your experiences into something fictional — this is a question almost every memoir writer I’ve known asks.  

Why? Well, you don’t want to hurt anyone, you don’t want to be called a liar and you definitely don’t want to be sued, so you think you can avoid all the complications of writing your true story by going the fiction route instead.

Here’s why you might want to rethink that and stand tall in your truth. 

All writing stems from the ✨spark of what’s real.

Let me tell you a story.

August 10th, 2021 will mark the 30th year since my first date with Noah, who I met through a mutual friend. (Noah is my partner for those who don’t just automatically know these things.)

There’s a more complicated story behind the simple statement of a mutual friend, but it’s not pertinent to this particular story, so I’ll leave it for another time.

Although it’s a memory I cherish, there are lots of details I don’t remember about our first date. I don’t remember if he asked me or if I asked him. I don’t remember what we talked about or if we held hands. 

I do remember drinking beer at a bar, then walking from the south end of Manhattan all the way up north in shoes I bought specially for our date to impress him. They were black patent leather with thick straps extending across the top; heavy-soled, flat-footed, clunky things that hurt my feet so badly I couldn’t walk for days because of blisters.

I also remember peering down at my shoes as we walked uptown, wondering if I’d ever see him again. (Spoiler alert: I did ????)

Almost like a foreshadowing of the adventurous life we’d have together, Noah and I both cut work for about two weeks — he got fired, and our first date became history.

Then, 30 years passed. There are an endless host of stories we’ve created between then and now; most of them, a blur. 

Objective truth doesn’t matter in a memoir.

I can recount the bones of my objective truth:

???? We moved to Brooklyn.

???? We had two children.

✈️ We left New York to travel.

???? We ended up in Salta and stayed longer than we intended.

In between these life events, a million endless starry-eyed tales fill in the flesh between the bones. At this point, I confuse the details, and I can’t remember what happened and when.

But here’s the truth: It doesn’t matter.

When we write about the past, our senses spark memories and fill us with emotion. The crunch of vanilla wafers reminds me of pre-school. The odor of roses transports me back to my grandmother’s garden. Intense heat and humidity inspire a replay of the summer Noah and I met. 

???? The feelings from our memories and the subjective truth beneath the bones guide the stories we write.

Last night, I asked Noah if he remembered the shoes I wore on our first date. “Yes,” he said. “I remember they hurt your feet.” 

Then he told me how it touched him that I got the shoes to impress him — something new to mark our first date — and that I kept walking just to be with him, even though I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

Right there is the essence of whatever happened all those years ago. Our connection began with a pair of shoes.

He remembers the night differently, but it doesn’t matter — he remembers the shoes.

Memory is hopelessly corrupt.

This past weekend, we went to an Asado (what American’s might consider a barbeque) at a friend’s house where I sat next to Luuk, a Dutch ex-pat living in Salta with his family. (Do I need to tell you his name isn’t really Luuk?) 

Our stories of first moving to Salta came pouring out.

Like this one, for example: Janis, Noah’s biology professor from City College, invited us to a conference in Salta. We’d traveled with Janis and his wife previously on a research trip to a subtropical rainforest in Brazil. 

One thing I remember most about our Salta trip is that there were blue morpho butterflies everywhere — flying around the rocky shoreline, following us along the paths as we hiked deeper into the forest.

Somehow, Noah doesn’t remember the butterflies. We didn’t capture any photos, and no one can corroborate the truth.

Still, it doesn’t matter.

In Salta, Janis introduced us to a group of people who seemed to be a cult of sorts, but not the kind of cult that tries to seduce outsiders to join them. No, these folks preferred to keep us out, but they did allow us to stay in a little cabina at the edge of their property. Outside the gate of their land, I stepped out the front gate of their property each morning to an unpaved road and donkeys instead of cars.

“Now that’s something you don’t see in Brooklyn,” I thought.

Mostly, I remember a tinge of nervous adventure beginning in the pit of my stomach and spreading into my limbs, my eyes and my heart. I was seeing something I’d never seen before. 

I didn’t know it then, but looking back, I see a straight path from there to where I am now.

Memoir isn’t that different from fiction, anyway.

I have no idea if the group we met in Salta was a cult. I also don’t remember how many donkeys were on that road, but I still told Luuk all about it. 

I recounted the days Noah got sick, and when the cult’s doctor Miguel told us, “Oh, that’s just his brain swelling.” At least, I think that’s what he said — Miguel only spoke Spanish and we didn’t speak much yet.

It was frightening not being able to understand anyone around me, and now Noa’s brain was swelling, so I packed our bags and moved us to an aparthotel in the center of town.

We fled the moldering walls of the cult’s cabina; away from the water aquifer covered in mosquitos, and away from the sweet loving puppies, the sprouting vegetable garden, the chickens Lila fed and the cat she called “Aye Que Linda Fruta!” when she sat with it in front of the chicken coop, playing.

“I’ve never heard these stories of yours,” said Luuk, surprised. I’d forgotten about them until that night when suddenly all the details came flowing.

???? Mary Karr talks about this process of uncovering memory in “The Art of Memoir.” She says, “Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.”

I highly recommend reading this book if you plan on writing about real life in any way.

Your stories are important — they deserve to breathe & exist.

Memoirist, essayist and historian Tara Westover discusses discrepancy in memories in her memoir Educated. She grew up with survivalist parents on a mountain, which included a father who believed himself to be a prophet. There was no room for her memories, and her family has since mostly cut her off. 

In families like hers, she says “there was no greater crime than telling the truth.”

We’re scared to tell our truth for various reasons, with most of those reasons being because of other people. However, here’s what we all should keep in mind: Someone else’s opinion isn’t a good enough reason not to write your story. 

If you write it as fiction, people recognize themselves anyway. Sometimes, people see themselves in images you’ve created even if they’re not really there.

As much as we may want to, we can’t control what others think and feel about our writing.

When people tell me they have a story to tell but they aren’t sure if they want to tell it as a memoir or fiction, I always dole out the same advice: Write the story you need to write. You can decide later if it must be fiction or memoir.

Truth or fiction? Which should you choose?

Truth and fiction entwine in ways we can’t quite grasp, and the Truth of Life is never the same as the Truth of the Story we tell.

Real life is unruly. The details stick out in all directions and can’t be tamed. Because of this, we smooth the edges of the stories we tell, whether they’re a memoir, fiction, personal essay or something else. We make them clean to offer insight, morals, a warning or an adventure our readers will follow breathlessly.

Write the story you need to write. 

Write your shitty first draft. In the process, you’ll learn quickly enough whether you’re meant to tell your own story. If your story is better told as fiction, you’ll notice your characters will take over and become their own people. You’ll follow them where they want to go.

But when you write within the core, kernel and center of your truth, you and your message remain the same no matter what you write.